


Lock Up The Wolves

by gilligankane



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This isn’t my Happy Ending. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be The Big Bad Wolf. I just want to be me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lock Up The Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missanomalous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missanomalous/gifts).



> As promised, for Alanna.
> 
> Soft spoilers for 2x07 Child of the Moon

When she stops to take a deep breath, her life comes rushing back at her like a tidal wave that nearly bowls her over in the middle of the street. Her walk feels unfamiliar and her body shakes with cold. She looks at her hands and for a moment, doesn’t recognize the last week’s stove burn across her first two knuckles.

Red feels like her head is spinning and she realizes it probably is. It’s a small space for one person’s memories to be, but two people just might be too much. The lingering memories of Ruby’s Friday nights at The Rabbit Hole dissipate, replaced by roaring fires in snow-filled forests, curling up under her cloak. The day’s specials fade to make room for an image of Peter, his crooked grin beckoning her out into the cold. Her bold conquests give way to the memory of shying away from her first kiss.

She remembers the fear of finding out the truth; the horror of looking at Peter’s body; the immediate confusion and the lasting guilt.

She remembers the nights on the run, huddled close to Snow, always looking over her shoulder.

She remembers finding her mother.

She remembers losing her all over again.

And while Snow and Charming embrace, while Granny chats merrily with Grumpy and the dwarves, while Emma inches away from the people who brought her into this world, while Henry keeps pushing Emma forward…

Red wishes she could just forget again.

*

The town is panicking. They’re panicking, but there’s an undercurrent of content and happiness that Ruby always felt was missing from the townspeople. Now, Red can see it and feel it. It sparks like electricity every time someone finds the person they lost when the curse was cast. She was lucky, she knows. She stayed with Granny. She was granted a mercy most people were not.

“Have you seen my Papa?” a little girl asks, tugging on Red’s coat.

Red shakes her head. “I’m-I’m sorry. No. Go ask the Blue Fairy.” Red points in the direction of the sign-in tents; more than likely, the girl’s father might be scouring the lists, looking for his daughter.

As the girl leaves, Red starts looking around, taking in the familiar and the unfamiliar faces. It’s strange, to her, how she spent twenty-eight years with them all and nothing ever clicked.

Inhaling deeply, Red shudders. Someone smells like death. Someone smells like rotted bodies and spoiled blood. She turns her nose up and sniffs, her eyes narrowing as her gaze lands on Dr. Whale. She tries to picture who he is in the other world, but his scent is overwhelming. Red feels her stomach pitching and ducks around a corner, already on her knees.

When she’s done, she wipes her mouth against the back of her hand, sagging to the ground as she leans back against the side of the building.

“Taking a break, dear?”

Red’s head snaps up, a low growl in her throat, but Regina doesn’t bat an eye. When her guard goes down, Red sighs and sags back against the building. “What do you want?” she asks dully.

Regina slowly pushes her hands into her pocket. “Shouldn’t you be out there, shepherding the people?” She seems to smirk at her own joke. “Though, I suppose you’re more the wolf than the shepherd, aren’t you?”

Red is on her feet instantly. “Take it back,” she demands.

“Dear, if you don’t learn to take a joke, you-”

Red shakes her head. “No. Take it back. The wolf, the memories. Take them back.”

Regina looks taken aback, only for a moment before her mask settles back into place and she laughs, sharply. It echoes against the brick behind Red and it hurts her ears. “Oh, dear, the curse has been broken. I’m afraid you’re stuck as you are.” She turns around and heads back down the alley, laughing softly.

Red watches her go and doesn’t realize she’s got her fists clenched and her teeth bared until that little girl from before tugs on her sleeve to tell Red she found her Papa.

When the girl scampers offs, eyes wide in fright, Red sighs heavily and sits back down with her head in her hands.

*

The wolf is there, all the time. It takes some getting used to and it keeps her up at night. She didn’t start transforming until she was thirteen and she was still so young when her old life was taken from her that if she does the math, the wolf in her was asleep for much longer than it was awake.

She feels like her body isn’t her own. Every sensation is heightened now: smell, sight, taste, sound. Standing too close to people makes her nauseous and she avoids Dr. Whale all together. She never liked him and she can’t put a finger on who he was in their old life, but he carries a smell that lingers on her body like a thin veneer of oil she can’t wash off. She Blue Fairy is cloyingly sweet and makes Red’s spin. The noises, too, of the townspeople worried for their missing families and suddenly discovering their out of place in a world they were forced into.

Red takes to staying in during the day and going out at night, walking the streets and trying to clear her head. She sees David – Charming – occasionally, on night watch, and she thinks about saying something, about offering to help. But there’s a look in his eyes that’s been there since Snow and Emma disappeared that says she should give him his alone time. Her walks tend to take her more towards the woods anyway. She lingers at the edge of the forest and thinks about what she’ll do when the first wolfstime comes. Will she change? The wolf is inside her now but will she actually change when the full moon comes?

The question keeps her up almost every night. She wishes Snow was here. She would know what to do. She would smile and put a hand on Red’s shoulder and assure her that no matter what happened, she would be here.

But Snow is gone, headfirst into a portal that took her too far away to come back and help Red sort through her life for the second time.

“Careful, dear,” Red hears behind her. She turns quickly and lets out a sigh of relief at realizing it’s only Regina. “I hear there are terrible things in the woods.”

“You would know,” Red mutters. “What do you want, Regina? Or should I call you ‘Your Majesty’?”

“You should do no such thing.”

The longer Red looks at her, the more she sees Regina, the Evil Queen. It’s in the way she stands, so tall and straight, and the way she looks down at Red with as much disdain as she can manage. But _Ruby_ can see Regina, the Mayor, and the empty, hollow-eyed look in her eyes that sometimes stared blankly across the diner, late at night.

They stand in silence for long enough that Red starts to fidget, the wolf in her eager to get into the woods and let loose. Regina doesn’t move an inch, a stoic figure still enough to be a statue.

“You cursed us,” Red says, breaking the silence. “Why?”

There’s a very good chance that Regina will dismiss her. She’ll turn on her heel and march back down the road to her car and leave Red with all her questions. But Regina shrugs and gives her a ghost of a smile. “I didn’t want Snow White to get her Happy Ending. I didn’t want anyone to get their Happy Ending.”

She turns and leaves now and Red watches her go, her confusion washing over her.

Regina wanted to take away everyone’s Happy Ending. And maybe she did, separating Charming and Snow, letting Emma grow up without a family that truly loved her, sending Geppetto’s son away.

Except Red’s Happy Ending was never to be the wolf. She’s not even sure if she had a Happy Ending.

But if she did, this isn’t it.

*

They were dumb to think that a locked door would hold her. When Granny shakes her awake and she comes to her senses, it’s the first thing she thinks. They were so, so dumb to think that a locked freezer door would hold her.

When they find Billy, torn in half, the smell of blood pungent in the air, she has to step behind his truck and empty her stomach.

How could they be so stupid to think a locked door would keep her inside? She’s a wolf. She’s more than a wolf. She’s a wolf who was dormant for twenty-eight years and they were foolish to think she would change and stay put.

She can’t do this. She can’t be a wolf and a human and Snow isn’t here this time, to hold her in the morning after she changes back, to throw a cloak over her at night to bring her back. She’s alone this time, fumbling through the steps she took before, learning how to be both. It’s too much, it’s too overwhelming. Charming tries to tell her it’s okay, that she couldn’t have done that to Billy, but Red knows the mark of a wolf when she sees one and it’s all she see can when she looks at his body.

When Charming and Granny turn their backs, Red takes off towards town. She’s in a full sprint by the time she gets to Granny’s but she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop when she gets to Michael’s garage or when Henry, at the schoolyard, calls her name. She doesn’t stop at the sign that says the edge of town is a mile away.

She doesn’t stop until she gets to the town line and then she pulls up short.

Grumpy had said that if you crossed over the line, it erased everything. It made you who you were in Storybrooke – a pharmacist instead of a dwarf. Crossing the line would make her Ruby again, a waitress who wanted to get as far away from Storybrooke as she could. It would take away the wolf and free her of the monster inside her.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” someone hisses behind her.

Regina stalks forward, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her away from the town line.

Red struggles in her grasp. “Stop it. Let me go. Let me go!”

Regina’s grip tightens. “You foolish girl. Crossing that line-”

“Will erase Red from my memories,” Red finishes. “It will put the wolf down. I won’t be able to kill anyone else.” Her eyes burn with tears.

“You won’t…” Regina grabs her other arm, turning Red to face her. “What are you talking about?”

Red feels a sob rising in her chest, threatening to spill out. “I killed him,” she whispers hoarsely. “The wolf… I killed him.”

Regina shakes her by the shoulders. “Whom did you kill?” she asks, her voice growing gentle.

“Billy,” Red says, the sob spilling out of her mouth. She sags forward towards Regina, leaning heavily into her. In the back of her mind, she knows she should be keeping her distance. This is the Evil Queen, after all, but Regina’s hands are soft against her neck as she cradles the back of Red’s head, holding her close. “I killed Billy,” she cries, breathing heavily into Regina’s shoulder.

Regina doesn’t say anything. She just stands still, holding Red up, letting Red cry out her anger and her frustration and her guilt. Just as Red feels like she’s going to pass out from exhaustion – after a whole night of being the wolf and her run through town, she wonders how she’s even standing – Regina’s grip tightens a little more. Red braces herself to be pushed away, for Regina to realize the position their in, but Regina simply straightens up, letting Red stay at her side.

“Come on,” she says quietly. “Let’s get to the car.”

Red lets herself be pushed and maneuvered like a rag doll, falling into Regina’s expensive car. She feels too afraid to touch anything but her seatbelt, as if she’ll shed on the leather and she won’t live it down. They move through the town smoothly, turning at Storybrooke’s one stoplight instead of continuing on Main Street. They’re at the Mayor’s mansion before she realizes that they’re not at Granny’s, and Regina is helping her out of the car and into the house.

When Regina gently pries off her boots and throws the comforter over her, Red blinks heavily, the exhaustion slowing her movements.

“I’m Little Red Riding Hood,” she mutters sleepily. “And I’m the Big Bad Wolf, too.”

A cool hand brushes across her warm forehead. “Yes, dear. I know.”

She nods, or maybe she doesn’t, and the last thing she sees before she lets the exhaustion take over is Regina settling in a chair next to the window.

*

When she wakes up again, she panics. The sun is starting to wane in the sky and she’s wrapped in sheets she doesn’t recognize. She sits up, eyes adjusting quickly, her sight so much more finite since the curse broke. The wolf keys in on Regina’s presence, still in the chair by the window. Red watches her chest rise and fall steadily and realizes that Regina has fallen asleep.

It all comes back to Red quickly: running to the town line, the hopelessness she felt as she stared at it, Regina’s palms burning against her arm as she pulled her back.

“You’re awake,” Regina says, her voice heavy with sleep.

Red nods sheepishly. “I’m always so tired after the first night. I just… I must have forgotten that.”

Regina stands, stretching slowly. Red looks away, feeling guilty. “Why…” She shakes her head, cutting herself off.

“Why what, dear?” Regina asks.

Red hesitates, but finally asks. “Why did you come after me? How did you know where I was going?”

Regina moves to the window, staring out over what Red guesses is the backyard. “I was with Henry at the schoolyard and saw you running like a madwoman.” She pauses another moment. “Henry asked that I ‘go after you’.”

“I don’t know how to control it,” Red admits after a minute. “I don’t know how to control the wolf. I’ve been human longer than I’ve been a wolf and I don’t know how to not let the wolf take over.” She feels hysterical now. “This isn’t my Happy Ending. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be The Big Bad Wolf. I just want to be me.”

Regina stares at her, unblinking.

“I don’t want this,” Red adds softly.

“We are all stuck with something we don’t want, dear,” Regina says, bitterness seeping into her voice. “In each world, we were stuck with things we never wanted. Be that responsibility or bad memories or family we could not escape. Everyone forgets that now. But soon, they will remember.”

Red scoots back against the headboard, a pillow stuck behind her. “But-”

Regina continues over her. “I may have punished a few people. I may have separated Snow from her Prince Charming. But look at what good I have done.” She pierces Red with a look that dares her to say otherwise. “Running water, electricity, schools, jobs, money. I gave people careers and homes and a life free of Ogres and Giants. You! I kept you with your grandmother. And maybe Ruby always dreamed of getting away, of getting out of Storybrooke to see the world, but you were content here. You were content to stay. I gave you that.”

Red nods slowly. She can’t argue against Regina, because the woman has a point. In the old world, they had no modern conveniences, things that Ruby grew up with and came to rely on. And yes, she wasn’t separated from Granny, no matter how many days she wished she could be somewhere else.

“As soon as the curse broke, all of you suddenly forgot about that,” Regina finishes.

“I didn’t.”

Red figures she has to be just as surprised as Regina is that she said that. But she closes her mouth and nods firmly. “I didn’t forget.” She climbs out of the bed and steps forward. “The wolf was something I never wanted to be. All it’s ever done is hurt me. It got Peter killed and it got my mother killed and now, now it’s gotten Billy killed. Maybe…” she twists her hands together nervously. “Maybe the curse was a good thing,” she admits. Regina breathes out something that sounds like relief. “Maybe we were better before it broke. Now we’re all a mess.”

Regina shakes her head. “You’re Snow’s best friend. Surely-”

“Snow doesn’t understand what it’s like. To have a monster inside of you, fighting to be free. She always talked me down, always made me feel safe,” Red admits, “but she never had to be the one who felt like they were tearing apart at the seams.”

Regina reaches out to her, understanding in her eyes. Her hand brushes over Red’s cheek, under her sleep-swollen eyes, tucking loose hair behind her ear. “I’ll admit, I wanted revenge. But this world is so much better than our old one.”

“I know,” Red says simply.

“You do,” Regina agrees, sounding surprised.

Red nods and leans into Regina’s touch, gasping softly when the beast inside seems to quiet just a little, just enough that Red can breathe without worrying that each exhale will let the monster out.

“Promise me that you won’t try anything as foolish as you did earlier,” Regina says quietly. Red’s confusion must show on her face because Regina’s mouth quirks up a bit. “You know, dear. You know how foolish breaking the curse was. And as you can see, there aren’t a lot of people who agree. There are not a lot of people in my corner, so to speak. And I’m willing to bet there aren’t a lot of people in yours, now that Snow is gone.”

“We need each other,” Red concludes.

Regina nods slowly. “We do. If we want to get through what’s coming, we do.”

Red thinks of the mobs and how soon, they’ll probably come after her. They’ll come after her the same way they came after Regina and this time, Snow and Emma aren’t here to persuade the people to go home and let go of their anger.

The wolf is still there, still lingering under the surface, but like with Snow, the beast slips into an almost-silent place inside of her as she stands near Regina, tempered by the calming nature and their shared belief that the curse worked in their favor. It’s still there but it growls less in her ear and even as the sun sets, she doesn’t feel the overwhelming pull to let it take her over.

“We do need each other,” she repeats.

The wolf is still there but Regina nods in agreement and Red feels like she can breathe again.


End file.
